


Charlatan Ways

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-12
Updated: 2005-08-12
Packaged: 2019-05-15 15:20:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14792988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: She saw you coming.





	Charlatan Ways

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**Charlatan Ways**

**by: Delightfully Eccentric**

**Character(s):** Donna, Amy  
**Pairing(s):** Donna/Amy  
**Category(s):** Slash/Romance  
**Rating:** ADULT  
**Disclaimer:** The West Wing characters and histories aren't mine, and are used here for love, not money.  
**Summary:** She saw you coming.  


She saw you coming. 

You're not sure how you feel about that. 

He tells you, while he's perched against the edge of your desk, wearing what just might be a substitute for the Joey Lucas suit, and ruminating on prostitution. 

He doesn't know what he's telling you, of course, because he's helpless and hopeless and that's probably a big part of what makes her like him. 

(It's probably what she thinks she likes about you, too.) 

You're not really sure what he's telling you either. You don't know, at this stage, if he'll ever get his act together and call Amy again. She could be another Joey, except you're not continually nagging him to go out with this one. You might, given time. You might dangle rosebuds in his face and spin her stories of his magnificence. 

He changes direction halfway through a thought on decriminalisation. You're sure she's not as fast as tracking his twists as you. 

"She asked if Joey and I were dating." 

"You let that ship sail, buster." 

"She asked if you and I were dating." 

There must have been a first time but you're damned if you remember. 

You wonder how to shift the conversation back to the street corner. 

"Are you listening? She thinks you're cute." 

You know he's twisting her words, but you've seen her, in magazines and on television, and you know that, before she opens her mouth, she knows exactly how her words might be twisted. You know too that cute isn't quite the right word for her. 

"She didn't say anything about me being cute," he muses. "She has to think I'm cute, though, right?" 

"That depends. Did you question her sewing notions?" 

"I'm just saying, it's not very polite to go saying you're cute and not giving me anything." 

"She said it to annoy you and to see how you'd react. She doesn't know what I look like." 

"She's seen you." 

"How do you know?" 

"She said it like she'd seen you." 

His eyes move across you. You can tell he pictured you when she passed her comment. 

You visualise her eyeliner in the last picture you saw, and think that words aren't going to be the only things to be twisted. 

You're right, about one thing at least. 

* 

More dates than you're willing to count later, he's still afraid to call her at work. He's still refusing to call them dates, too. Maybe that's out of courtesy to the man who wouldn't be thrilled to find someone else is polishing his trophy. Maybe it's because Josh is more afraid of her than you are. 

You're excited by the fear she inspires in him. 

He sits behind his door and broods over your easy rapport with the woman who answers Amy's telephone. 

He paces around his office with the door open, doing battle over speakerphone. 

Well. You're not quite sure. It's either war or foreplay. 

You listen - not intentionally, surely. You're outside where you always are, just doing your job. 

You're a quick study. (You could have been so many things. It's taken you some time to accept that you're not the blank canvas you used to be. You are what you are, now.) You learn the nuances of her voice before you ever see her face in three dimensions. 

So, maybe, you saw her coming. 

* 

There are things that slow you down. 

The phone is on your lap; his life is spread across your desk. 

You're doing three things at once (you slow down for these calls). 

You get ready to be banal: "Hey, Frances, it's Donna Moss." 

"Women's Leadership Coalition, Amy Gardner's office." 

The voice is wrong, but ‘wrong’ isn't the word you think. You think ‘frustrated’ and, after a comma, ‘sexually’. 

And you try not to be smug about the fact that she might be in such a condition while she's got two men twitching on the end of her strings. You try not to think it might say something about her. 

All this passes through your mind before you have fully acknowledged that it is in fact her. You are hearing Amy's voice legitimately for the first time. She is about to hear yours. 

"Hello." 

She says nothing. 

"I'm Donna Moss." 

She exhales, audibly. You're nervous; you talk. 

"I'm Josh Lyman's assistant. I usually talk to Frances." 

"Frances went home." 

There's nothing to this conversation. Clearly, there's nothing to this. 

"Uh huh," you chirp. It's the brightest non-committal sound anyone ever made. (You thought you were past disliking yourself for things you think might not appeal to others.) 

"I'm sorry. Is Amy available?" 

You wonder if you're on first name terms with this woman who doesn't realise how much you know about her. You haven't forgotten that you don't know how much she knows about you. (Whether she knows you're cute.) 

"You're talking to her, Donna." 

She says it like she knows. 

"Oh. Right." 

You sound clueless. You wonder if she likes it. 

"I meant for Josh." 

"Oh," she enunciates, but you hear the same thing you heard when she answered. You learned her language, listening. 

"So, I can put you through? To Josh?" 

You haven't the foggiest perception of what makes you so peppy when you want something, someone, someone's tongue. 

"I suppose you must," she says. 

* 

You see her after the State of the Union. Rather, she sees you and you catch her. 

Her upper lip curls. For a moment you've got yourself convinced that two suitors aren't enough for her, then John Tandy pushes past your elbow and lumbers to her side. He catches your glance on the way past. It's the first time you've seen him outside of newsprint. You watch him brush up against her hip. 

He thinks if he stands near enough, he can look as good as she. 

You smirk into your champagne until Josh springs up behind you and, as so many times before, makes you almost choke. "Just what are you smiling at, Donnatella?" He pretends to keep you company while he eyes Amy and her over-eager hound. 

She raises her glass and nods. He gives the less arrogant version of the Josh-smile, a notch above a grimace. You could swear she's looking a touch to his left. 

Back home, when you're taking off your dress, you wonder if this counts as a meeting. 

* 

You watch them a lot, these first few months while they're both playing children's games. They're interesting together. 

Mostly you watch in public, but Josh has never been subtle and Amy's not much better. You've learned when to shut your eyes. You don't always want to. 

Josh and Amy always give the appearance of being sex or throwing water balloons. Whether their heads are lowered, spluttering laughs that turn into kisses, or fighting on their feet, Amy's hand is on her hip, jutting at quite an angle. Her weight is thrown back to create the illusion that they're worlds apart. Really, your first impression of her was to be reminded of him. 

She's a lot like him but she doesn't look like him - except, perhaps, a certain way she smiles when she fears she might be wrong. She re-crosses her legs and the split of her skirt rides up. No, she doesn't look like him. She is a lot like him. She isn't him. You gaze at her collarbone and the surrounding creamy expanse, broken only by the silk of her slip and a delicate strand of gold; it's not gunmetal that glows against this skin. 

You're not complaining. 

Watching her play with his hand, not quite at her breast, you wonder who gave her the necklace. 

He takes her face in his hands and draws out a graceless kiss. He'll be back in a minute, he tells her, and in passing, he blinks and tells you to go home. Does he need anything before you go? You speak in murmurs, as if she's not supposed to know you're there (as if you aren't always). It's a second or two before he answers, because he is Josh and he doesn't really listen. His eyes wander to the door he didn't bother to close. 

"No." 

You nod and you smile and his world goes on spinning around him. The door creaks as he scurries out of sight. You turn around at the sound. 

You're no less observant when she's without him. 

* 

They're at their best in winter, when the cold gives them something to defy. At Christmas, the possibility of her distracts him from the associations of last year's holidays. By January, she's flesh and blood for him. 

In early February, your car's half-buried in a snowstorm and you're two hours late for work. By the time you're within yards, your toes are probably webbed with icicles. 

A ball of hard-packed snow slams into your shoulder. An old piece of unacknowledged fury snaps inside you and you whip around too fast to keep your balance, a case of too many clothes and numbed muscles. 

It gives her the chance to hit you in the elbow. 

She stands there, pixie-like with hat and glee, laughing at you. The snow is a twinkling greetings card backdrop for her. For you it's quicksand. 

Against all logic, you're not angry anymore. 

You scrape a handful of snow off your coat and squeeze it into a ball. She dives left and it glances off her coat, leaving a white memory on violent red. A hysterical bubble of laughter is trapped in your chest and it takes a blow to the shin to set it free. 

Cut down on one knee, you're taking great gulps of air and letting out snorts. She's running over, pelting you with anything that doesn't melt in her hands. She says she didn't know you cared. You bring the knee up and seize her shoulders and then you both roll over and shriek until you don't know where the air is coming from. (You don't know where you find the nerve.) 

She kicks you away and puts up some distance. Her aim is erratic now and you'd be able to dodge if you could control the jelly in your legs. 

It's no wonder she can't throw straight. Her eyes don't leave yours for a second. It makes you dizzy, or perhaps you were already. You don't remember. 

She can't think you'd touch her while she's with him. 

You see her smile widen with the angle of her arm as she prepares to launch. 

You wonder what it's like to have such confidence in what others think of you. 

"Amy," and you don't know what you're going to say, but it doesn't matter because she hits you right between the eyes and you're flat on your back. You might have known she'd have her way. 

She approaches cautiously, as if you might bite from where you lie. "Donna, you okay?" 

Her hand burns, pounding blood and slick with melted snow, when she reaches to help you up. Just as you've leant her some of your weight, a missile from the other hand catches you hard in the chest. You slide through her fingers and she jogs for the entrance before someone can dispel her victory. 

You lie where you've fallen, sunk inches deep, until her laughter fades away. 

And pick yourself up; drag yourself a path to the door. Ignore the askance looks from security. Limp through the corridors, laughing off concern from Carol and Ginger on the way. 

You're still laughing, oddly enough, by the time you reach the bullpen. It froths up inside you and erupts in little bursts as you peel off your layers. You're going to need a towel for your hair. 

The blood in your cheeks tingles. You must look like a sodden blonde strawberry, teased by her red coat hanging on the stand. 

The door to Josh's office opens and the man himself appears. "It's about time," he says, then eyes you up and down. You expect she didn't greet him in quite such a bedraggled state as you, and probably less elated. Just as wet. 

Your fun melts off your fingers, drips down your legs and is swallowed by the carpet until you haven't even a puddle to save it in. 

Icy remains sink into your stomach. They stop melting. 

* 

"This is bad," you whisper against her air. 

She rolls you over and straddles you; your stomach will be sticky when she's gone. She weighs nothing. She rises up on her hindquarters and bends forward until she's an arch above your body. She burns words into your face with breath that rasps just enough to remind you of pain. 

"You know what they say," at which she stops to drag her tongue up the cheek that's half-turned away. A part of you would get dressed right now if the rest of you would let it. 

"When I'm bad." 

She slips and slides until her body is flat against yours. Even her legs, not quite as long, try to follow yours. You're a pair of pinned butterflies, then she relents and manoeuvres a knee between your thighs. Her dark curls are pressed directly to your blonde, mutually damp. Your skin screams out every place the two of you meet. 

"I'm very, very good," chuckling at her own obviousness. 

"I - I meant-" 

She kisses you, and you don't care. 

She coaxes pleasure from your body as if she knows you. 

You don't know now how you could ever have conceived of her being anything other than quick and efficient and ruthless in working you back to a fever every time you think the ache is about to settle. 

She's demanding, too, pushing your hands everywhere and squeezing with her thighs until you feel almost forced. Another little something snaps within you (you're starting to wonder how much of you will be left when all this is done) 

"Donna," as if she's amazed at who's doing this to her. 

You push her back. She doesn't fight, kicks one leg out wide in the air. There's a trickle down her thigh; your tongue retraces its path. 

"Donna," again. You're not sure you like how she says it. 

She's flailing, reaching out for you. It's easier to do this if you ignore everything but her heat. The scent intoxicates you and you know your tongue hasn't reached all the spots you want to taste by the time a touch to her clit sends her kicking and screaming and clenching in ways your tongue has to taste for itself. 

You forget to stop and so she does too. 

* 

You lie with every muscle resting easy, one leg hanging out of the bed, and think of her thinking she's better than you. 

You can't pinpoint a start date and that bothers you. You're one who likes to keep track of these things, measuring commitment by numbers. You wonder if she's ever had an anniversary in her life. 

The date you settle upon is that of the start of possibility: a week after Simon Donovan was killed (you don't like the word shot, still), she told Josh she wouldn't be second best. 

You think of pots and kettles. But when she knocks on your door, you don't turn her away. 

He's been moping around the office, kicking up shitstorms, for a month. You try to be sympathetic, in between telling him not to be such a baby. You try not to lie. 

You squeal when the dog's wet nose nudges your ankle and he licks the length of your foot. You know he's leaving a smell behind. You've tried to like dogs but Amy's is the first that hasn't growled at you. 

You dig your toes against the folds of his skin but Henry won't take the hint. People have said that about you before. 

Of all the ways you've pictured her, asleep was never one. You've never imagined her so passive. Stretched out next to you with no clothes, no cares and skin like strawberries and cream with flushed red patches from the unaccustomed presence of your body heat - you'd never have got this vision right in your head. Her breasts, flattened against her chest, rise and fall. There are vivid colours there too, more malign where your mouth broke blood vessels. The silence overwhelms you. 

Maybe she's faking it. 

Maybe you're supposed to leave. 

Instead you pull your leg out of the dog's reach and, rolling over onto your stomach, hook it over hers. She stirs. Her mouth falls open. 

The silence continues. 

* 

She makes you sit on the chair, the horrible high chair with a velvet pillow shaped like a lopsided heart and too many metal edges, while she goes down on you. 

Her hair tickles your thighs and you drag lines in it with sweating fingers. You wind up with your own skin under your fingernails, crescent moon tears in its place. You concentrate hard on the memory of her mouth at your breasts moments ago. You spin. 

Suddenly her tongue's not in you and she brushes at your clit with her lips. It's not even as much as a tease. It's a torment. 

And she touches you with the tip of her tongue and you let your breath out in a rush. She breathes in to laugh and you shudder as the air shifts. You grip the seat of the chair, forcing yourself to the edge. She runs her tongue across your clit, barely touching. It's enough to half-kill you but you need to be better than half-dead. If she hadn't made you sit here, you'd be grinding yourself against her face. 

She draws it out longer than you would have believed possible from the state of your arousal when she started. It ends with a pointed nail on your clit and her tongue inside you. 

You jump. The chair rocks. You're dizzy. You could get hurt like this. 

You remember that, after you've both sunk into the soft relief of the bed. 

"I know you think I'm weak," you tell her. 

"Donna," exasperated, meaning ‘shut up’. 

"But we all have our sore spots and our soft spots and, and, I have to say-" 

"What?" 

"I would rather my weakness be love." 

Your skin still wears it sheen and roses, and your eyes are still bright from sex. You are trembling, within, without but she knows you mean it. You haven't bothered to cover yourself; you look just as you did when she touched you. Your pupils are so large your eyes might be as dark as hers. Hers are so large she might be the devil. 

You can see it happens as she begins to understand and you feel how much she wants to hate you. Then she stops. All the time she doesn't take to understand is self-preservation. 

You don't have difficulty believing her weaker and smarter than Josh, who would like to make sense of it all if only it made any. 

You're more accepting. You have to be. 

* 

You haven't heard from her in five months when she comes to work for the First Lady. 

She greets you with a smile. 

Josh gets more than that, but not as much as he's hoping for. It's not worth thinking through. That's not to say you don't. 

She's used to getting more of a reaction than this, so she tries to cut your legs from under you with a tired old question the rest of the world thought of first, then got bored with. 

She thinks she's so smart. 

(She thinks) she's bought and sold your soul inside without ever having paid attention to anything other than your hair when it swings back; your clothes where they squeeze. 

Those, and she keeps a faux-wide eye on the sort of devotion you won't be ashamed of, no matter who's asking the questions. Maybe she worries, too. 

It could be anyone forgettable sitting in front of you. 

She asks, "Are you in love with Josh?" 

You almost say, "You think you're so pretty." 

* 

They comfort each other after Zoey, when everyone is barely clearing meltdown. You don't begrudge them. 

They're not their best, not this time. He's not thinking straight. It rubs off on her. 

It breaks your heart when she feels she has to leave another piece of her life behind. 

Josh doesn't understand why she doesn't just say sorry and do better next time. Your heart hurts for him too, for the guilt that'll take him over for a while. You know there's a part of him that knows his life will be easier without her here. You know too that he'd take on any of them to help her keep this job. (All except Leo. He's scared of Leo now.) 

She catches you watching but she only sees pitying. She'll punish you for it if she ever cares enough to take the chance. 

Josh doesn't understand, and you're surprised to find you almost do. You're quite sure by now that she's never had an anniversary. 

Josh doesn't get Amy. 

Your heart breaks for her. You don't think she knows what she's leaving. You don't know where she's going to go. 

* 

For a moment you think it must be Josh, mostly because it would take a lot more than any sign she's ever given you to indicate you were ever likely to find Amy Gardner hunched up like an orphan on the doorstep. 

It's a wild moment: of course she doesn't look like Josh, especially when she's contrived to form herself into a ball so tiny you can picture Toby throwing her to get attention. You're not even sure any more that she's anything like him underneath. Josh sticks to things for better and, more often than not, worse. Amy's still looking for better. 

You wonder if she asked him what time you'd be heading home. You wonder if he found it odd. 

You call her, "Amelia," to prove that she can't be mistaken for her almost-ex, and she squints because she doesn't know what you're thinking. Tap-dancing against the night air, you focus on her pupils. 

She's been drinking but not enough that she might imagine she's on someone else's doorstep. Enough that she'll call you, "Donnatella." You could tire of this game. Her head flops forward, shaking with an imagined joke. 

"Did you want-" You rummage through your purse longer than it takes to locate your keys. You don't doubt there will be awkwardness when you open the door. And perhaps you like how vulnerable she looks in the cold. 

She says, "You." 

The brightness in her eyes spills over. Your glove is on her cheek before the water freezes. Purple wool, scratchy against her skin; you wonder if it reminds her of a man. 

It's after she's rejected the arm you attempt to shepherd her through the door with, after she's dropped her shoes outside the bedroom like a tease, after she's drunk your coffee and pretended to feel better. After all that, you remember that Josh almost certainly loves one of you, and that it might be her. 

* 

It only took a week to get to this point this time. 

You're flat on your stomach on her bed; the sheet's somewhere around your ankles. She thinks you have more to hide than you do. Your breasts are squashed flat against the mattress, no room for her hand beneath. She'd made your limbs so weak you're unwilling even to prop yourself up. Your brain is still ticking (hers never stops). Half your hair is stuck to your back, the rest fanned around your head on her pillow. 

Your features fall into their natural eyes-closed early morning smile. 

When she comes back through with her coffee, you have an arm stretched across the headboard and a finger twisting a rope of your bed-hair. You don't open your eyes. You don't like to see angry things in the morning. 

You keep smiling. "Hey, you." Perhaps you're overly familiar; perhaps you're trying to scare her. 

You're facing her side of the bed, but she sits in the ugly chair instead. You look at her. She looks at the dip in the mattress under your middle. 

"Babe," you say. 

She takes it seriously, curves her lips. 

You're not distracted. "You need to pick." 

Her lips turn the other way. 

"Donna." Don't be like that. 

"I'm not asking you to-" You bite your tongue. "You're all your own, Amy. But you can't sleep with me and with Josh." 

You've never before told her she can't do something. You rather thought she could do anything. She's been spoilt. 

"You want him to know," she surmises, and you don't like the light that goes on in her eyes. 

"No," you shake your head against the pillow. "I don't. And if he and I keep sleeping in this same bed two nights a week…" 

"He doesn't know. He'd never know. It's fucking hot." 

You shut your eyes, then open them. It might be, if he weren't your best friend. 

"I'm discreet," you tell her. (Polo-necks, polite greetings.) "I'm not duplicitous." 

Amy laughs. The smear of her lipstick on your thigh burns. 

She says, "That's a big word." 

"Amy. I won't." 

She turns her head and her hair sticks to her shoulders, bare as the rest of her. 

"You don't want him thinking he's my one and only?" 

You bite your tongue, again, and shake your head, again. Your legs slide over the side of the bed. There's your shirt, hanging over the back of the chair. There are your pants, where they fell when the chair nearly toppled. You cross the floor and your stomach flutters when her fingertips brush it. 

You look at her curled-under white legs as you tug the shirt out from behind her. She squints through the veil of your hair. Buttons and zippers are heavy under your hands but you manage not to break the silence. 

When you're almost put together, she nudges you with her painted toe. 

You turn back to look at her when your hand's on the doorknob. She's twisting over her shoulder and her eyes could cut glass. 

You hesitate; the corners of her mouth twitch. A step, two, back to her back and you press your hand against it. If she hates you for anything, this is it - but she hasn't cured you of the habit of thinking better of people any more than he has. 

"Let me know, huh?" 

You're better at this than you used to be. 

End 


End file.
